Retailers take increasing advantage of mobile in stores

Retailers are making steady progress with in-store mobile services, beginning with basics such as shopping lists and locators to help customers navigate the aisles. During "the next six to 18 months, we are going to start to see big retailers ... enabling new services such as customer analytics for their own internal use or in-store navigation and ultimately moving to hyperlocal in-store advertising," said ABI Research analyst Patrick Connolly. Retailers are already realizing "huge benefits" from tracking how customers move through their stores, Connolly said.